Though just an industry rumour at this point, I have now heard from numerous sources that the Hasselblad V line (their traditional cameras and lenses) will be going out of production, and will cease to be available worldwide once current inventories are depleted.

In the current issue of British Journal of Photography, the CEO, Christain Poulsen has "vehemently denied" the rumours. He is quoted as saying, "We've worked very hard to cut down on costs to make us more flexible production-wise. We have stopped all production of parts in Gothenburg: its outsourced now and we have better flexibility for scaling down."

"That's been going on for 18 months. And now we are trying to consolidate support in three centres around the world - America, Europe and Asia - so that even when the volume gets very low, customers will still be able to send off equipment to these centres. Eventually local support will disappear, but it will be quite a few years before that happens in England."

Indeed. Reading between the lines of what Poulsen has said, he recognizes that demand is declining for the 500 series camera (I refuse to call it the "V" series), but that by producing the components outside Sweden (in China I guess) the costs of keeping it in the line can be kept under control. If demand falls to a point where even this becomes unsustainable, then Hasselblad will obviously drop it from the range.

Its very easy to suggest that this is happening purely because everyone is shooting digital these days, but the truth is more complicated. Like Nikon before them, Hasselblad are now competing head on with their own equipment on the second-hand market - a situation that Leica, for example, have long experience of. Only the few who might insist on buying new would take seriously the idea of paying out £2000 plus for a new 503CW, when near mint used examples (of that model) can be had for around half that price, and 500CM cameras can be picked up for well under a thousand.

Professional users may well have turned towards digital, either through choice, or sometimes because of client pressure to do so, and this has released large amounts of high-end film kit onto the market which serious amateurs who aren't well-heeled enough to shell out for a 1Ds II or some such (or simply don't wish to change to digital), can take advantage of.